A guiding word? If you haven’t heard of this concept before, please let me help you understand before we dive in to how to choose a guiding word for the Year.
Choosing a guiding word or phrase can bring great power to you throughout the year. It helps you set an intention and gives you a simple action step to move forward every day. Being mindful of this word in everything that you say and do often helps to guide you towards your goals, dreams and desires.
A guiding word helps us live our best life and to show up as our highest self with intention and inspired action.
I’m not a huge fan of statistics, however often the numbers do not lie. So, let’s remind ourselves that research suggests that approximately 80 percent of people will fail at their New Year’s resolutions by mid-February. (Psychology Newfoundland and Labrador)
Why am I bringing this to your attention? Because goals, whether personal or professional are very similar to resolutions and at this time of year, we must be mindful of our intentions as well as our commitment.
Now, I know that business goals and guiding words are different than traditional New Year’s resolutions, however often when we are working towards a new goal or set a new intention in our business, it requires us to form a new habit.
Starting new habits and sticking to them is not much different than New Year’s resolutions if we are to be honest with ourselves, do you agree?
Because of this, we need to learn how to create new habits with ease in order to achieve success. This is where our guiding word and/or phrase comes into play.
A guiding word serves as a regular reminder and is present in our daily lives to guide us towards our desired outcome or goal.
Let me know if it makes sense to think of it this way: In order to reach a new goal in our life or business, we need to create new habits to help us get there. After all, our good friend Albert Einstein reminds us that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
Therefore, creating NEW habits will form NEW results and those results will guide us towards our goal.
A guiding word is a simple tool to help us be accountable and to guide and remind us, all while forming a new habit.
So, let’s start the new year off by creating good habits and systems that will inevitably help us work towards our goals.
Are you in, my friend?
This year, my guiding word is TRUST and
my phrase is TRUST the journey.
Steps to Choosing Your Guiding Word or Phrase
I typically start off with choosing a word (sometimes two) and then craft a phrase that I can repeat as a reminder to myself what I am working towards.
- Reflect upon the past year.
- Analyze what you would like to change moving forward as well as what your desired goals and dreams are for this year.
- Brainstorm some words that come up when you consider what you would like to change and how you want to feel supported during that process. One tip is to think of some words that would help you if your best friend or business coach used them to encourage or guide you.
If you are a business owner and would like some further guidance on how to choose a word AND how to use your word to guide you, I invite you to join our Growing Your Brand and Business group on Facebook. Inside the group, there is a special unit dedicated specifically to guiding words.
To start you off, receive a free printable that you can use to print off and create a visual reminder for yourself once you have chosen your word.
